Saturday, November 16, 2013

It's a drab, dark, dreary day here in Milwaukee, WI and I HATE this time of year. Each year the dark and gloom seems to affect me more and more, and I soooo fully appreciate why ancient cultures devoted so much time to feasting and spending time around massive fires and/or hearths and burning lots of torches, candles and oil lamps when they were each invented in their turn. I've followed suit and done much the same as the ancients. I've been cooking cooking cooking incredible foods since the third week of October. I pulled out all the stops, so to speak, in this room fully decorated for the Autumnal Equinox and the harvest, Hallo'een and Thankgiving days that follow, all leading up to the darkest, dreariest time of year, the Winter Solstice! I've been burning candles and using battery-operated candles and running my gas-powered fireplace, and turning on "accent" lights in every nook and cranny of this house during the dreary days!

The photo above makes the room look brighter than it actually was and it's a bit blurry because of the time auto time delay when I use it on "scene" setting. Now it's 4:32p.m. and if I didn't have this computer monitor on and Mr. Don's votive candle going (I have a photo of him on this desk and when I'm working here I keep a votive candle lit before his image in his Goddesschess memory) I would not be able to see my hand before my face, ach, as I turned off battery-operated or blew out fire-lit candles until it got a little darker! BTW, that's my view of this front room when I turn my head to the right while at my desk working. I love this room and spend most of autumn and winter evenings here (or days like this, when it never gets brighter outside than evening).

I was disappointed that the Unive (Hoogeveen) invitational tournament did not have a female player this year, so I'm not paying any attention to it. There was a large Open event run concurrently, and some female players took part. I've tried to pick out the top finishers among a very large field!

It was a 9 round Swiss. The official site no longer gives the option of an English translation, alas, and my Dutch is non-existent. I figured out enough (well, actually no, I didn't, I just clicked on every single fricking link until I got to the place I wanted to go!) to be able to give you these results from the Open -- winner and the female players -- not even a hand-full! -- who played in a field of 77 players:

This article is dated September 11, 2013, three days before the Indian court that held the rape trials of men accused of the horrific rape of a female college student on a bus, the injuries from which caused her death, handed down death penalties for the defendants (death by hanging).

I've written about the Indian (and Chinese) practice of aborting female fetuses. A culture that refuses to change is a culture that WILL die, and it cannot happen soon enough as far as I'm concerned. I hope it will happen before I die, sometime in the next 30 years or so.

(CNN) -- The New Delhi rape case left the whole world wondering why India is treating its women so badly. In fact, discrimination against women already starts in the womb: India has some of the most distorted sex-ratios in the world. There are regions where fewer than 800 girls are born for every 1,000 boys. For many reasons Indian culture prefers sons. An expensive bride-price, or dowry, is only one of them.

So day-by-day, thousands of parents circumvent rarely enforced laws and have their baby daughters aborted after an ultrasound scan has revealed the sex of the fetus. It is estimated that India has been losing [aborted] up to 12 million baby girls over the last three decades.

I wanted to find out what it means for a society if such a significant number of women are missing.

In one village just two hours drive outside Delhi, I met Narinder, a schoolteacher, and his family. He had three brothers and only one of them got married. There weren't enough brides, because the village has been aborting their daughters for decades.

Narinder told me that he had already reached out to an agent who would find him a bride from afar. In fact, he planned to share this bride with his brothers.

I felt sorry for Narinder, because he totally understood that his misery was due to the fact that his village has been actively selecting for sons. Still, in a quiet moment, he confided to me, that if his purchased wife would be pregnant, he'd make sure it was a son. I was perplexed. Everyone in this village knew it was wrong to prefer sons over girls, everyone experienced the problems firsthand.

And still, like sleepwalkers, they continued their way, because culture dictates that sons are a blessing and daughters a curse. [Let them die off! Narinder, looking for a wife, plans to "share" his wife with his brothers? Get bent, dude! Go find a goat or a sheep and "share" it with your brothers. It's better for the perpetuators of this culture to die once and for all, and with it this sick culture - from Mother Earth once and for all. They will be the cause of their own demise.]

After the Delhi rape case, the whole world looked at India in disbelief, its urban middle class took to the streets. I returned to India to meet Shafiq Khan, a former Maoist rebel, who realized that violence is not the way forward. Shafiq now uses his wit and bravery to make inroads into rural India's patriarchal societies.

We hit the dusty streets, down to Haryana where Shafiq introduced me to women who do not have a voice, women for whom nobody demonstrates. They are abused and raped and sold like cattle and nobody cares. They are called Paro, or strangers. They are the sort of women Narinder will buy -- those who make up for the scores who are never born.

Akhleema and Tasleema, two sisters from Kolkata, were born into a poor family, before her aunt sold them via an agent to two brothers in Haryana, who could not find a bride. Within weeks, Akhleema was beaten so hard by her husband, that she lost hearing in her left ear. Both spend their time cooking, cleaning and tending the fields. They have no rights, no voice and, most shockingly: there is no way back. They have children with their men and it is culturally unacceptable to leave them behind.

But where are all these trafficked women coming from? In a cruel paradox, it's the poor northeastern states of India, like West Bengal or Assam, where sex-ratios aren't that skewed, that make up for large parts of all the missing women.

Assam is beautiful, even during the dry season. The Brahmaputra winds its way through the plains, quietly and peacefully.

"But don't be mistaken", Shafiq says. Because during the rainy season, the river erupts over its banks, destroys fields and villages. In these already poverty-stricken regions, flooding takes away the little people have. Thousands of families are pushed into poverty and helplessness. They end up in flood shelters, vulnerable and easy prey for traffickers, like Saleha and her husband Husain. Their daughter Jaida went missing two years ago. They saw a man entering the hamlet and talking to Jaida. She vanished without a trace.

In a remote village on the dusty floodplains we meet Halida. She had just turned 14, when a man kidnapped her while fetching water. For two days he raped Halida, told her that he would bring her to Delhi in order to sell her. Halida could escape, but now she cannot go to school anymore, because all the children know of the rape and tease her. The parents, day-laborers, cannot find work anymore, because they are ostracized by the whole village. The rape destroyed the family.

While the trafficker may have lost his prey, it's unlikely that he will ever be punished. The police are corrupt and the more destruction there is, the easier it will be for him to find new victims.

Thus closes a vicious circle in which millions of India's women are trapped. The prejudices against women are so deeply engrained in the cultural fabric, that only a combined effort, old and young, urban and rural, will be able to break it once and for all.

After excavating the jawbone of a cow in northern China with telltale characteristics of being a domesticated animal, a multidisciplinary team of researchers report that humans may have started domesticating cattle around the same time in more regions of the world than previously believed.

A little more than 10,000 years ago, early humans had already begun domesticating cattle in the Near East, according the research team, which was co-led by scientists from University of York and Yunnan Normal University. Early domestication efforts gave rise to humpless, or taurine, cattle, followed about 2,000 years later by the domestication of humped, or zebu, cattle in South Asia.

However, this latest research, which is published in the journal Nature Communications, points to both morphological and genetic evidence that there was an effort to domesticate cattle in northeastern China about 10,000 years ago, around the same time as the earliest evidence of taurine cattle husbandry in the Near East.

The researchers came to their conclusions after excavating a cow's jawbone at a site in northeastern China. Carbon dating placed the specimen at 10,660 years old. But the jaw also displayed a unique pattern of wear on the molars, which the researchers contend is the result of of long-term human management of the animal. A DNA analysis of the ancient jaw revealed that the animal did not not belong to the same cattle lineages that were domesticated around the same time in the Near East and South Asia.

"The combination of the age of the jaw, the unique wear and genetic signature suggests that this find represents the earliest evidence for cattle management in north-east China; a time and place not previously considered as potential domestication center for cattle," the University of York said in a statement.

Michi Hofreiter, a professor in the department of biology at York, said the specimen is "unique and suggests that, similar to other species such as pigs and dogs, cattle domestication was probably also a complex process rather than a sudden event."

The House action that stripped food stamp funding from a massive farm bill would threaten vital assistance for about 5,000 military families, mostly from the junior enlisted ranks, Pentagon officials said Friday.

A Department of Agriculture report last year showed that more than 5,000 of the 48 million Americans receiving Supplementary Nutritional Assistance Program (food stamps) listed their employment status as "active duty military," the Pentagon officials said.

"Military members who receive SNAP tend to be made up of members in junior pay grades with larger than average household sizes," said Navy Lt. Cmdr. Nate Christensen, a Defense Department spokesman.

Military Families and Food Stamps

Published: September 24, 2013

Regarding “Free to be hungry” (Sept. 24): Although I often share Paul Krugman’s views on many issues, he omitted a key point in his column. Military families receive food stamps — about $100 million this year. Alarmingly, this year has seen a massive increase in the number of military families seeking assistance. One might say that $100 million is a very small fraction of the total cuts in the food stamp program and that it will affect only a small number of military families. I would reply that even one current service member, one veteran or one disabled hero from Iraq, Vietnam or Afghanistan is one too many.

So when Paul Ryan of the House Budget Committee says, as Mr. Krugman reported, that the safety net is “a hammock that lulls able-bodied people to lives of dependency and complacency,” I would counter that it is his congressional salary and his security that has lulled him into a sense of arrogance and insensitivity.

While some congressmembers are repeatedly quoted deriding and ridiculing people in need of assistance under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), more commonly called food stamps, the cuts that went into effect Friday will hit military veterans in every state, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, an independent, non-profit fiscal research group.

The food stamp cuts would also slam the families of 5,000 active-duty servicemembers, the Department of Defense said in July.

“Military members who receive SNAP tend to be made up of members in junior pay grades with larger than average household sizes," Defense Department spokesperson Navy Lt. Cmdr. Nate Christensen told the web site Military.com.

Military pay at the junior levels is so low that such families must use food stamps, but generally are able to forego the assistance once the servicemember in the household receives a promotion, Christensen said.

In 2012, just under $100 million in food stamps were spent at military commissaries. That trend is rising, with $53 million already used at commissaries in the first six months of 2013.

According to the CBPP report, the states with the highest number of military veterans who receive SNAP assistance are Florida, with 109,500 and Texas with 105,700. No state has fewer than 2,200 veterans needing food assistance, with most states showing numbers in the five-figure range.

“Veterans who participate in SNAP tend to be young, but their ages range widely,” the CNPP said in a statement. “57 percent of the veterans in our analysis are under age 30, while 9 percent are aged 60 or older.”

Veterans on food stamps cover the gamut of wars, going back to those who served in World War II, as well as in peacetime.

During the recent government shutdown, Republicans in congress vociferously supported veterans who attempted to gain access to then-closed war memorial sites.

“Our veterans should be above political games,” said Texas Senator Ted Cruz at a rally in support of the veterans who wanted to visit memorial sites during the shutdown.
One Republican congressmember, Rep. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota, recently responded to a constituent’s question about the food stamp cuts by saying, “If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.”

Oklahoma Republican Rep. Markwayne Miller also covered the food stamp topic at a meeting with his constituents in August. He characterized food stamp use, based on his observations at a local supermarket, as “fraud. Absolute 100 percent, all of it is fraud."

Today is Veterans' Day in the United States, a federal (national) holiday in remembrance of the men and women who have served in our armed forces.

In the course of researching and recording my family's history, I discovered that my family have a record of American service that goes back all the way to the Revolutionary War (the War for Independence).

There were, of course, those fighting Forsyths! I've posted about them here and at my other blog, Maison Newton. Three brothers from Granard, County Longford, Ireland enlisted in the British Infantry in October 1813 at Monmouth and fought in the Napoleonic Wars, and after that war ended their various regiments served in Canada. John Forsyth and James Forsyth mustered out at the completion of their "bare term", and settled in upper New York state. My direct ancestor, Andrew "the Soldier" Forsyth (as I call him), also evidently mustered out of the British Army at the completion of his "bare term" (around 10 years) sometime in 1823 and in 1830 he enlisted in the United States Calvary, where he continued to serve until being wounded in the Mexican War in the 1843. He died in 1861, months before the outbreak of the Civil War.

Andrew the Soldier's sons, Andrew Jr. and Jerome, both served in the U.S. Calvary in the "band," being enlisted by Andrew the Soldier initially when he entered the U.S. Calvary. Think of the players of fife, horn and drum with the flag bearers of the Revolutionary War -- an image of the battered, bandaged and weary musicians and flag bearer bravely accompanying the troops into battle. Often the "band" members were not even teenagers. This tradition continued all the way through the Civil War, and sometimes encompassed large orchestras accompanying troops to the battlefield and playing while the fighting went on all around them! I was utterly astounded when I read about this practice.

Uncle Andrew Jr. served several terms in the "band" but retired from the military after he moved to the family homestead near Green Bay, Wisconsin and got married. (Andrew the Soldier had bought acres of land near Green Bay, Wisconsin in the early 1830s, and the clan settled there, except for Aunt Josephine once she was married).

This photo is from the Barlament family, descendants of Benjamin Forsyth, the youngest son
of Uncle Andrew Forsyth, Jr. and Ann McGinnis. Date unknown. This is Uncle with his
three surviving daughters: Josephine born 1845; Catharine born 1848; and Amanda born 1849.
Matilda, born 1847, died in 1854 at the age of 7. My direct ancestor, Jerome Forsyth, Uncle Andrew, Jr.'s
brother, also had a daughter named Matilda, who grew up to marry Edward Belanger, Jr. Matilda and
Edward were the parents of Ida Belanger, who married Frank Chester Newton, and became
the parents of Francis John Newton, my dad.

My direct ancestor, Jerome Forsyth, continued to serve in the military as a band member and, near the end of the Civil War, as band captain for one of the Wisconsin regiments, a singular honor. He was wounded in the Civil War, recovered, and went back to his duties. Aunt Josephine Forsyth, the youngest and only female sibling of the three offspring of Andrew the Soldier, married military men, her first when she was only 14, and was widowed - three times. She followed the drum including accompanying husband #2 to the Mexican War and, after he died from complications of wounds received, a year or so later she married Michael "Smith" (Schmidt), perhaps a close acquaintance, a hero of the Mexican War who had retired from the military and set up a smithy in Green Bay. Two of Aunt Josephine's sons fought in the Civil War.

Uncle Andrew, Jr. lost a son, Jerome (repeated use of family names gets confusing), in the Civil War. Jerome son of Uncle Andrew, Jr. (who, in turn, is the son of Andrew the Soldier) enlisted in the Wisconsin Militia, 12th Regiment Infantry, Company H, as a private, at Green Bay, Wisconsin on 10 Feb 1861, and mustered in 02 Oct 1861. He died during an outbreak of an unspecified disease at Fort Leavenworth on March 30, 1862 at the age of 19.

Jerome Forsyth, my direct ancestor (son of Andrew the Soldier), had two sons who fought in the Civil War: Andrew (Andre) Henry Nelson Forsyth (I believe the Nelson was in honor of the famous British naval hero Admiral Nelson, who was created a peer of the British Empire for his service to the Crown), and George Forsyth. Andrew/Andre Forsyth had an arm amputated as a result of a wound or wounds incurred in the war. As far as I can tell, George Forsyth was not wounded. I believe it may be George Forsyth upon whom an old family story is based about a soldier sneaking home during the Civil War to rest and get "fattened up" before going back to battle. The family "hid" him in a hay loft in one of the barns until he recovered. Okay, I don't know how much of that is true - it was a story that my dad told several times when we were very young, as told to him by Matilda Forsyth(e) (dad's grandmother). Yep, George Forsyth was AWOL, but as I learned by reading articles about the Civil War, this was not an uncommon occurrence at the time; soldiers would skip out and then report back to their old regiments months later and carry on as if nothing had happened!

Although I have not yet done follow-through research, there are records indicating that one or more of the sons of James Forsyth and John Forsyth (Andrew the Soldier's older brothers) also served in the Civil War.

It is not only the Fighting Forsyths, however, who served their country in the military service.

It is in the Bailey family line where ancestors who fought in the Revolutionary War appear. Laura Ruth Bailey was my paternal great-grandmother. She married David Villeneuve, who changed his surname to Newton sometime either before or after he emigrated from Prescott, Ontario, Canada to the Marinette area in northeastern Wisconsin in 1881. I have just begun my research into the Bailey family line, having spent years working almost exclusively on my French-Canadian ancestors on dad's side of the family and my Polish ancestors on mom's side of the family. Perhaps I may learn enough to establish that I am eligible for membership in the Daughters of the American Revolution, har!

Laura Ruth Bailey and my great-grandfather, David Antoine Villeneuve/Newton, had a large family, among whom was my paternal grandfather, Frank Chester Newton. Grandpa Newton served in WWI, as did his brothers, Uncle Fred (Frederick Albert) Newton and Uncle Leonard Newton.

My dad, Francis John Newton, WWII.

As regular readers here may already know, my dad, Francis John Newton, served in WWII and received the Purple Heart and Bronze Star. He achieved the rank of Sergeant and was honorably discharged on 27 Jan 1946 at Camp Grant, Illinois. He served in the U.S. Army, 63rd Armored Infantry Battalion, 11th Armored Division in Europe from September 1944 to August 1945. He was a squad leader of a group of 12 riflemen. He was wounded in action in Belgium on 5 Jan 1945. He also suffered severe frostbite on his feet, a condition he never claimed for and which caused him much pain in his later years.

Dad would have loved to go on one of the Honor Flights to tour the Veterans' Memorials in Washington, D.C., but he died in early November, 2002, years before the Honor Flights began. Dad's funeral was featured in an article in the Milwaukee Journal/Sentinel in November, 2002, that talked about the increasing number of WWII vets who were dying and the shortage of live bugle players who could play "Taps" at veterans' funerals. I've posted about dad's service and veterans several times (some posts below):

Our Commitment to Chess

Scholarships for Chess Femmes

Our Commitment to Chess

2012 Goddesschess Canadian Women's Closed Chess Championship

2014 SPONSORSHIPS

Hales Corners Chess Challenge XIXApril 12, 2014Milwaukee, WIPrizes for female players in Open and Reserve sections and paid entry to next HCCC for top female finisher in each section. This is Goddesschess' 12th HCCC!

Goddesschess Fighting Spirit Award

2013 U.S. Women's Chess Championship

2013 SPONSORSHIPS

Hales Corners Chess Challenge XVIIIOctober 12, 2013Milwaukee, WIRecord prize money awarded to chess femmes - $800!In honor of National Chess Day and the one year anniversary of the passing of our webmaster, researcher and writer, Don McLean, additional prizes of $150 were awarded to the top two male finishers in each Section.Milwaukee Summer Challenge IIJune 15 - 16, 2013Milwaukee, WIPrizes for the chess femmes and funding a best game prize

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"Advanced Chess" Leon 2002

About Me

I'm one of the founders of Goddesschess, which went online May 6, 1999. I earned an under-graduate degree in history and economics going to college part-time nights, weekends and summer school while working full-time, and went on to earn a post-graduate degree (J.D.) I love the challenge of research, and spend my spare time reading and writing about my favorite subjects, travelling and working in my gardens. My family and my friends are most important in my life. For the second half of my life, I'm focusing on "doable" things to help local chess initiatives, starting in my own home town. And I'm experiencing a sort of personal "Renaissance" that is leaving me rather breathless...